


a beacon in the night

by 11oyd



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Serial Killer Castiel, Serial Killer Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 08:26:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2806031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/11oyd/pseuds/11oyd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean's ghost tells him to do things and Castiel listens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a beacon in the night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sarahsaurus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahsaurus/gifts).



"Just tell me the truth," says the woman - Jo - in a soft voice. "I promise I'll believe you. I've heard some hard to believe things before."

"You haven't heard this," Castiel says, staring down at his wrists chained to the metal table between them. "You haven't heard anything close."

"Castiel," she says. "I promise."

**I.**

"It's okay," promises Dean before every kill. He does the same thing each time: taking Castiel's face between his frosty hands, he stares at him with an intensity that takes Castiel's breath away. His green eyes are a pasture for Castiel to run through, dark and endless. "It's okay. He deserves it. Think of the kids, Cas. Think of the fucking kids. Think of their freedom, their happiness. You're their  _savior_."

And Castiel always shakes his head - or tries to, struggling to pull away from the frozen hands that hold him still. "I can't, Dean. I can't. I'm becoming exactly like them. I'm - I'm a - monster -"

"You're not," Dean insists. "You're  _stronger_  than them. Braver. You're  _mine._ " And when he kisses Castiel, his lips feel a hundred times hotter than the rest of him, burning into Castiel like he is a match and Castiel is kindlewood. He is melting, he is roaring, he is gripping at Dean's clothes and he gasps into his mouth, arching up helplessly.

This one, Keith Fisher, has beaten his two oldest children for years, but it is only after he started beating the youngest that anyone found out about it. He's strapped into a chair, a gag around his mouth and his head twisting and turning furiously in an attempt to get out of his bounds. His head is the only thing that can move, but Castiel plans on changing that soon. Soon none of him will move.

But first, he has a question.

"Did you like it?" he asks quietly, standing before the man and slowly rolling up his sleeves. Dean hovers behind him, silent. "Did you enjoy it when they cried? Were you pleased when they begged for you to stop?" He neatly removes the blue silk tie he wears to work every day. "Because I have to tell you… That's my favorite part."

And he pulls down Fisher's gag.

**II.**

Dean dies in October, when Castiel's favorite trees are losing their leaves, and reappears in March, when his favorite trees are blooming again. At first he just flickers, here and there, never speaking, only staring. Then one day he speaks and Castiel decides he'd lost his goddamn mind.

"I'm real," is the first thing he says.

He knows he shouldn't speak back, shouldn't encourage his own insanity, but it's been three minutes and Dean is still there and -

"You're not. You died. This - you're impossible."

"I'm real, Cas," he says. "I came back for you."

"You  _died._ " His voice climbs, growing hysterical. "You died - you died -  _you fucking left me alone, you died_ -"

But when Dean's fingers grip his wrist it feels real, and when Dean's hand covers Castiel's mouth it feels real, and when Dean pushes him into a wall and fucks him hard it feels real. It all feels real, and it can't be. Castiel had seen the fire that consumed Dean's house, burning him up alive. Nothing had been left, nothing but dental records to identify the man Castiel loved.

Now…

"No one else can see me," Dean whispers to him in the dark, his front pressed against Castiel's back as he holds him close. "You're special."

"You came back for me," murmurs Castiel drowsily.

"I came to help you," says Dean, but Castiel forgets to ask  _help me with what?_ before he falls asleep.

After that, Dean doesn't leave.

**III.**

"You're fucking crazy," spits the sixth victim––no, the sixth abuser.

The sixth monster.

Castiel forgets his name, can't think of anything but the way his blood looks dripping into his own mouth and sliding down his neck. He does know that this man raped his own daughter for three years, probably has tasted her blood multiple times and it feels like righteous justice.

Dean is standing behind the bloodied man wearing a proud look on his face. "Who are you looking at? You  _fucking sicko_ , there's no one fucking there!"

"There is someone there," Castiel tells him. These men are the only ones he can talk to about Dean; everyone else would ship him off to a mental hospital. But these men are dying anyway, what does it matter what they think about him? "His name is Dean. He has a message for you."

"Say 'No one will save you'," says Dean calmly.

"He says no one will save you."

"Say 'Repent of your sins'."

"He says repent of your sins."

"Tell him he can go fuck himself," sneers the man, spitting out a mixture of blood and saliva onto Castiel's face.

Castiel slowly wipes it away.

"Apologize," he says. The knife in his hand feels heavy like guilt but when he lifts it he doesn't struggle.

"There's no one there," says the man, his teeth stained red with his own blood. "There's  _no one fucking there!_ " He throws his head back and suddenly screams with laughter, writhing in his bonds.

How long has Castiel been down here with him in this basement? Suddenly he can't remember the last time he ate or drank or breathed fresh air. He just knows the touch of the blade and this one's screams and Dean watching him, always watching him.

"When he's dead, we'll fuck right here," Dean promises. Castiel can't look away. "I want you covered in his blood when I come inside you. Covered in justice, Castiel. He deserves this."

He deserves this.

Castiel takes his time, slicing his skin in ways Dean will admire, this will be his greatest masterpiece, he will stop after this one, he will do no others after this one, he  _won't_.

**IV.**

He remembers the first time so vividly. Dean had been following him for seven weeks at that point, and it was as if he had never died. A few things changed - obviously they couldn't eat out at Dean's favorite diner any more, and Dean's brother was upset when Castiel wouldn't visit Dean's grave with him any more, but those were little things. Little in the face of Dean's smiles and Dean's eyes and Dean's arms wrapped warmly around him.

Castiel still went to work, still dealt with the cases his superiors dealt out to him, still rescued children from their desolate home life.

Until.

Until he caught a glimpse of the father in one of his cases, and suddenly Dean was standing there right at his shoulder, speaking in a voice no one but Castiel could hear, saying, "It's just not right. He's going to go to jail for a few years, maybe less, and then get out on good behavior. And after all he's done – after the trauma he's caused that poor kid for the rest of her life. It's just not right."

Castiel glances at him. He knows he shouldn't speak to him right now, not when someone might catch him and think he's talking to thin air, but he has to say, "What else can we do?"

Dean stares at him hard. "Justice, Cas. We can deal justice."

Justice?

**V.**

Justice comes bloody and hard, justice comes when Cas is breathing hard and covered in blood. He blinks and looks around, looks down at his arms covered in a dark slick liquid that actually might not be blood. It smells - it smells like… gasoline? Oil?

He looks around. There's a man strapped to a table - odd, he never uses a table - with burn marks all over him and his left hand completely gone. Just missing, a black stump bleeding heavily onto the floor.

Castiel can't remember, did he do that? Did Dean do that?  _Can_ Dean do that?

"What did you do to your children?" asks Castiel in a raw voice, stumbling closer. He needs to know, what kind of justice is he serving. The man looks on the brink of madness.

"I - keep telling -" Blood bubbles at his lips, his eyes rolling around like an animal's. "No fucking - no kids - I'm single - I've never -" He seizes, convulsing. Now Castiel realizes he, too, is covered in the black oil.

Dean appears at his side, holding out a match. "Go on," he coaxes after Castiel just stares at it. "Go on, Cas. Take it."

"He… what if he's not… what if he's a mistake?" It sounds like a plea.

Dean hardens. "He's a  _liar_ , Cas. You think he'd tell you the truth? He's trying to save his own pathetic skin, because he knows you're about to burn it all off. He's raped children, and if you think he deserves to live then maybe I underestimated you -"

Castiel shakes his head jerkily. "No, Dean. No, you're right." He takes the match with shaking hands.

Dean is always right, will always be right. What would he do if he didn't have Dean?

**VI.**

"Is he here now?" Jo asks, glancing from end of the room to the other like she might suddenly see the man step out of the wall or float four inches off the floor. No, he's been leaning against the two-way mirror behind her this entire time. Dean may be a ghost, but he is not a horror story told to scare little children, he  _saves_  little children. He helps Castiel save little children.

"Yes," says Castiel. He doesn't see a reason for lying, not after all he's told her. "He says he's never leaving me."

"What else does he say?"

"He recognizes you."

Jo stares at him now, looking shocked for the first time since they started their conversation. "How?"

"He says it's been a long seven years, Joanna… Beth."

**VII.**

"Castiel - Castiel, will you excuse me for a minute?"

He nods, watching silently as she gathers all her note-taking materials and files on him before leaving the room. Behind the two-way glass, Dean Winchester turns away from the blankly staring murderer as she enters the room.

"I don't know what to say," he tells her. "We went on one date -  _one date_ , and then he tried to break into my house, and I got the restraining order, and… I don't know how this happened."

"Sometimes people just break," Jo says.

They've been partners for over seven years, but he's never seen her look quite like this before.

"Who knows what he went through when he was younger? Maybe he went through something traumatic and decide to go into social work because of it, but then something in his work triggered his memories." She looks past him, staring at Castiel like she can't drag her eyes away. There's a sick fascination in her eyes, mixed with mild horror. "The mind can only handle so much before…"

"But I've become some sick representation of his conscience," says Dean, disgusted. "Did you hear that?  _I'm_  the one goading him into killing all those poor bastards. I'm - who knows what other sick fantasies he has about me. I just, God, I feel fucking violated, Jo."

He turns back, staring hard at the psychopath sitting limply in his chair. He doesn't look like he's killed eleven men, that he was captured at gunpoint and brought in for questioning. He doesn't look much like of anything, except maybe someone who folds their socks. Dean had never expected this would happen, had even been considering a second date before the break-in had happened and he'd woken up to find Castiel rooting through his photo albums in his living room.

He'd brought scissors with him and was frantically cutting Dean's face out of every single picture like his life depended on it.

"You sick fucker," says Dean, staring through the mirror. "You sick fuck, why did you have to choose me? Out of all the fucking people."

Eleven men. He'd killed eleven men. And yes, some of them really had been abusers, on trial for harming their children or wives. But then towards the end… all the victims had begun to look similar to Dean himself, brown hair, green eyes.

"Did you mention me to him?" asks Jo behind him. "I mean - how - my full name? And how did he know how long we'd worked together?"

He hadn't even told Castiel he worked for the FBI.

"I didn't tell him," he says.

"Then… then how? How did he know to say that?" Jo asks.

**VIII.**

Castiel's Dean is covered in blood, it's dripping down his face and soaking his shirt. He flickers once and then is abruptly sitting in Jo's abandoned chair across from Castiel, his hands folded flat across the table. His eyes are a green pasture that Castiel dies in, dragging himself through the grass with his stomach sliced wide open.

Dean whispers, "I'll get you out of here," and Castiel's eyes slide up, inexplicably looking straight through the mirror to the real Dean's gaze.

"I know you will. I trust you," says Castiel.

And he smiles.


End file.
